Avid - Hidden Blade Stop?

O

OhShoot

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Jan 23, 2011
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Just got a Vantage Avid w/ Cherry Dymondwood, gorgeous, love it.

(not my pic, and color is much "hotter" than actuality):
buck346vantagecherry01.jpg


Didn't know till close inspection it has a "hidden blade stop" mechanism. Seems to be pins on each side of blade tang that engage into slots in liner some way or other, instead of a more common stop against a bar running transversely through frame.

Sure makes for a clean looking design in front area of knife, but wondering just how strong this might be compared to other type blade stops; ever been any kind of stress test comparison on this type thing?

Searching around found very little info.

- OS
 
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It's actually a single pin that goes through a hole in the tang. It's loose as I found out when I changed the scales on one, it dropped out and rolled away. Had a hard time finding it.

I don't see how you could possibly make it fail, I didn't measure the diameter of it, but it's probably close to 1/8", maybe a little less.
 
LOL, the first Vantage I got, I ended up shining a flashlight into it trying to figure out how the blade stopped!

Pretty cool design IMO.
 
Yup, there's a stop pin within the blade which moves along an arc as you open or close the knife. So the stop pin gets stopped when it reaches either end of that arc. I believe that the Buck rush works the same way too.
 
look at the thread [ Buck Vantage Pro skeletonized ] on pg 2 to see pictures of one apart.
post #2
very cool design..
sorry, don't know how to make that one clicky
 
The slot that the pin moves in measures 1/8" so the pin is only a hair smaller in diameter. I can't even imagine how much force would have to be applied to the blade to make this fail.

Vantagestoppin.jpg
 
Plumberdv said:
The slot that the pin moves in measures 1/8" so the pin is only a hair smaller in diameter. I can't even imagine how much force would have to be applied to the blade to make this fail.
Click to expand...

Waaaaay more than any normal sane use could put on it.

:)
 
It's a very clean design. The only downside, IMO, is that some people think the knife just has no blade-stop, period, and instantly dismiss the Vantage on that ground. I've seen it happen a couple of times, and I've had to explain that the Vantage has a rather clever hidden bladestop. The pin and liners should be plenty strong enough for any sane usage of the knife.

Incidentally, another clever bladestop/lock is the Vantage's cousin, the Paradigm. It's interesting to me that the actual locking mechanism (not the sliding bolster, but the actual lock itself) is so subtle that many people can't tell what's actually locking the blade open. Biiiig fan of the Vantage and Paradigm lines for their clever use of the bladestop and locks.
 
GundaManiac said:
It's a very clean design. The only downside, IMO, is that some people think the knife just has no blade-stop, period, and instantly dismiss the Vantage on that ground. I've seen it happen a couple of times, and I've had to explain that the Vantage has a rather clever hidden bladestop. The pin and liners should be plenty strong enough for any sane usage of the knife.

Incidentally, another clever bladestop/lock is the Vantage's cousin, the Paradigm. It's interesting to me that the actual locking mechanism (not the sliding bolster, but the actual lock itself) is so subtle that many people can't tell what's actually locking the blade open. Biiiig fan of the Vantage and Paradigm lines for their clever use of the bladestop and locks.
Click to expand...

That's strange. I literally have hundreds of knives and I don't ever recall wondering about a "blade stop" when I purchased any of them. :confused: It was enough for me that the blade stopped in the open position where it was supposed to, that told me (if I'd even thought about it) that there was a "blade stop".
 
The thing about this knife that bugs me is that everytime when i use a different amount of force to open the knife, the lock bar locks into different position. Hard press of the flipper, and the lock up is perfectly to the left. If i use lighter force, the lock sits at the middle of the tang. Weird isn't it?
 
Frozy said:
The thing about this knife that bugs me is that everytime when i use a different amount of force to open the knife, the lock bar locks into different position. Hard press of the flipper, and the lock up is perfectly to the left. If i use lighter force, the lock sits at the middle of the tang. Weird isn't it?
Click to expand...

That's not unusual. I have any number of liner locks that do the same thing when flipped open.
 
I've been wondering about how this set up will wear over time. I have an Odyssey that was EDC'd in a heavy use work enviroment for years. Over time the contact and pressure exerted on the blade stop caused the liner lock to drift more and more in until eventually the blade developed fore and aft play. Still a well functioning knife, the lock still prevents closure, but there's just a tiny bit of wiggle between blade stop and liner lock contact.
I know it's a totally different set up... but ther is still metal to metal contact on opening, and cutting.
 
I thought that too, Plumberdv. However, based on some comments i've read online and a couple people who've handled my knife, people look for a visible bladestop and when they don't see one they instantly conclude, rather illogically in my opinion, that there must be no bladestop or somehow the linerlock is magically serving as the bladestop and they suddenly distrust the knife.

@sitflyer, from what I understand over time and extended use linerlocks will wear and develop play. I find it odd that your bladestop would move or bend and believe it's probably the liner lock's wear that caused the play. That's probably why i see marketing for various other knife locking mechanisms saying that as they wear the lockup becomes better, if wear and play are a weakness of liner locks.
 
Gunda, maybe I wasn't clear. The wear happened to the bladestop and the butt of the blade where they contact. As the wear occurred the contact point of the linerlock to it's corresponding contact point on the blade, over time went further and further in towards the opposite scale from the linerlock side. No failue, no bending of the linerlock, just a little slop.
Again the knife was used daily, and hard, and after years of agressive ie flick openings.
I think time will tell, but this vantage setup seems very solid on my first impressions.
 
Ah, thanks for clarifying. That is an interesting case of wear. I would have expected the linerlock to wear first with the repeated rubbing against the blade tang. I didn't consider that the bladestop and its corresponding contact point would wear prior to the liner.
 
Gunda , you got me to thinking. Now imagine I use this knife for work . And I flick it open say 20 times a day to open a box, cut whatever... five days a week for fifty weeks over ten years. I came up with 50,000 opening cycles where that blade hits the stop...yes I'm sure that the linerlock has worn but 50,000 metal to metal contacts and somethings gotta give. Extreme use... :)
 
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